


Forever Was a Promise

by L3245



Series: Forever [2]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, F/M, Guardian!Adrien, Marinette Loses Her Memories, Romance, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:13:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23699071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/L3245/pseuds/L3245
Summary: Just a few hours after the defeat of Hawkmoth, Adrien Agreste is presented with an inconspicuous, sleek black box. He is now the Guardian of the Miraculous.Sequel to Forever is a Long Time.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Series: Forever [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1684930
Comments: 16
Kudos: 72





	Forever Was a Promise

**Author's Note:**

> Uh... yeah. This is an angsty addition to the first angsty piece. You should probably read that other one first so this makes sense. Enjoy. Or not. Too tired to care.

Just a few hours after the defeat of Hawkmoth, Adrien Agreste is presented with an inconspicuous, sleek black box. He is now the Guardian of the Miraculous.

-x-

The Agreste mansion was given up to the authorities, who scoured the place from top to bottom for clear evidence of his father being Hawkmoth. They didn’t have to look for long.

The upper observatory was discovered almost immediately, and Adrien saw how his father was able to vanish for long periods of time, how he was able to release akumas into the air and monitor their flight.

They found his mother in the basement. Or, rather, they found the carefully preserved corpse of Emilie Agreste lying peacefully in an underground room full of white, untainted butterflies. They called his father a madman, a necrophiliac, and they eyed him with looks of equal pity and suspicion until his answering blank stare made them turn away uncomfortably. Emilie returns to her childhood home in ashes. Adrien declines his aunt’s offer to follow.

He doesn’t hold a funeral for Gabriel Agreste. There’s no body to bury or cremate, and besides, no one would have wanted to attend a service for _Hawkmoth._ He doesn’t even buy a tombstone for the man he once called a father.

-x-

A press conference is held at city hall a day later. It’s a grand affair, the room packed with reporters. Loud whispers rippled throughout the crowd, rumors flying around, each one more unbelievable than the last. It had been a whole day since Hawkmoth’s defeat was announced, after all, and still there had been no sign of Ladybug or Chat Noir. The radio silence from the superhero duo was unheard of when nearly all of their battles were broadcast live on either big news stations or self-run websites like the Ladyblog.

The surprise was palpable then, when only Chat Noir walked up to the stand.

He was a shade of his usual self. There were no smiles, jokes, or laughter, and there was no partner dressed in red with black spots. His eyes were darkly rimmed, and his skin was pale. He looked like a dead man walking.

On that night, Paris would never forget the young man’s broken voice as he announces stiffly, “Hawkmoth is Gabriel Agreste. His son, Adrien, had no idea. In their final battle, Hawkmoth was mortally wounded by an attack of his own doing. Ladybug lost her life protecting everyone.”

Chat Noir leaves without another word.

-x-

Seven months.

That was how long it took for his classmates to give up on him.

Nino was the last to hold out with a half-hearted invitation to his little brother’s birthday party— “Alya and Marinette will be there. Hope you can make it, dude,” his tired voice had said in the voicemail—and Adrien almost gave in. It had sounded so final, then, that message from the first friend he had chosen for himself and had chosen him in return. He almost gave in, almost dialed the DJ’s number to tell him that yes, he would come, what kinds of rap music was Chris into these days, did he and Alya plan to stay together through college, and did Marinette get into that fashion program she wanted?

But he wasn’t just Chat Noir now. He was the Guardian of the Miraculous, Chat Noir without a Ladybug, son of Hawkmoth Adrien Agreste.

They were all better off without him, and it was best for him to maintain his distance.

Eventually, Adrien’s phone goes silent.

-x-

Eleven months.

That was how long it took for Hawkmoth to appear atop the Eiffel Tower demanding the Ladybug and Chat Noir Miraculouses. Adrien remembers his blood going cold, then hot, as he realized who was behind his dead father’s reappearance. He hadn’t been resurrected, no, nothing of the sort, and even his staunchest supporter Nathalie Sancoeur was hospitalized from a magically induced coma and facing several lifetimes in prison.

The Peacock Miraculous had never been a part of the Miracle Box that was transferred to him.

There was a new adversary, and as the Hawkmoth sentimonster fell to its knees before a Ladybug-less Team Miraculous, they learned the name of Hawkmoth’s successor.

Paonne.

-x-

They called him Chat Noir because of the suit he wears, a sleek black getup made endearing with a jaunty bell and swishing tail. They call him just Noir now, because wherever he goes, darkness follows  
  


Only the Ladybug and her Miraculous Cure could revert the damage from a fight, after all. Adrien tried, in the beginning, to set aside Plagg’s destruction and wield Tikki’s powers of creation, but there was a reason why he had been chosen to wear the ring instead of the earrings. He was light on his feet, quick with his mind, and strong in his conviction, but he lacked the imaginative thought Ladybug held effortlessly. More often than not, he was unable to figure out the purpose of a Lucky Charm, or if he did, it was too little, too late, his transformation timing out before he got to use the summoned object.  
  


He is not Ladybug. No one was, can, or ever will be. Not even the person who supposedly knew her best.

  
So he stuck with what he knew: Cataclysm. Paonne’s feathers all disintegrated with a touch. Destruction to end destruction. The devastation stayed but did not spread. Where Ladybug performed healing miracles, Chat Noir cauterized.

Paris continues to thank him for doing his duty, but Chat Noir has been in the business for too long, knows insincerity like the back of his hand.

Paris resents him.

They curse him behind closed doors for not properly finishing the job against Hawkmoth and Mayura. In hushed tones, they mutter that it should have been him, not Ladybug.

-x-

Adrien should have expected it. They live in Paris, which has a population of a little over two million people and an area of 40.7 miles squared, and he had carried on with the family business of fashion while she undoubtedly pursued her dreams of design. There was enough in common between them that it shouldn’t have come as a shock that he sees her one day on his way to a morning photoshoot.

Ladybug grins at him and everything freezes.

Adrien blinks and he sees it, his lady, this girl in full Ladybug regalia. She looked to be out of breath, and the chilly breeze had whipped at her cheeks enough to make the same ruddy shade they turned after a hard-won battle. Ladybug raises her hand— _several of the fingers were covered in little bandages, and he inwardly chuckles about how clumsy she was when they first met and wonders whether she’s working too hard over her new designs because she most definitely has some_. The blonde feels his fingers curl into a fist. He already hears the phantom echoes of their catchphrase, feels the pressure of her knuckles bouncing on his. He wanted so badly to answer her call.

He blinks again, and the illusion is shattered.

She’s wearing a solid black coat with an equally dark beret. A jade green scarf loops around her neck. Her deep blue hair comes down loosely to the middle of her back now. No mask, no suit, no red, no spots. There is no Ladybug, and she is most definitely not looking at him. She’s just a normal woman with a normal life, just Marinette Dupain-Cheng offering a breakfast croissant to a familiar blue-haired man, just someone he used to know, and it’s wrong, wrong, _wrong--_

A surprised gasp to his left. Then, a burning, wet sensation on his hand that drags Adrien back to the present. Without even realizing it, he had crushed his coffee, the thin cardboard of the cup crumpling inside his tight, shaking fist. He thinks his whole body is shaking too. He looks down and sees how his skin is turning an unpleasant shade of pink. A burn.

 _Oh. Chloe is going to kill me,_ Adrien thinks detachedly. Then he thinks it wouldn’t matter much. _Agreste_ already paid Adrien’s team a killing to edit away the numerous cuts and scars that have accumulated on the model’s body over the years fighting as Chat Noir. A little burn wouldn’t change much.

He looks back for those bluebell eyes only to find that Marinette’s back was turned to him as she and her companion walked in the opposite direction. She’s loosely holding onto the man’s arm, chattering and giggling all the while. She looks happy, and she never turns back.

 _It was him then, huh?_ The boy she had cried over, who she claimed she loved more and unlike any other, who she all but admitted was the only person keeping her from being with him as Chat Noir. _Luka Couffaine. Viperion._ It had never been him, not as Chat or Adrien. An ugly, dark feeling enters his heart, makes friends with the other nasty, black creatures that had already made themselves at home.

He walks away.

-x-

He’s not Ladybug.

Team Miraculous—Rena Rouge, Carapace, and Queen Bee—accept him as their new leader. The rest of the Miraculous holders show him respect as well, defer to his judgment and shot calls on the field. However, Chat Noir isn’t blind. He knows it’s different with him, especially when doubt flickers in even Carapace’s eyes during a stressful fight, when Bunnix grits her teeth and bites her tongue at a hastily-crafted plan, when Viperion uses Second Chance before most fights he’s in ‘just in case.’

There were two things that kept the team together: saving Paris, and Ladybug. Chat Noir had always been the capable, if not comical, support to Ladybug’s leadership. They had always seen him more as one of them, a follower, not a leader. During meetings and huddles, Team Miraculous still leaves a little bit of empty space between Chat Noir and themselves.

He’s not her, doesn’t think anyone can fill that void, and they all know it.

-x-

“I’m _trying_ my best, Plagg! Why can’t they see that? _I stayed,_ I picked up the slack!”

His office is in tatters. His desk is upturned, the decorative vase Chloe bought for him was smashed to pieces on the far wall, the framed awards for _Agreste’s_ success shattered, and magazines and papers were in shreds across the room. Empty wine bottles lay in shards around a broken television screen stuck on an image of Ladybug and Chat Noir in their early years. Adrien himself was not immune to the destruction, his body battered with bruises from battles past and his hands riddled with red half-moons and cuts.

“I know, kid,” Plagg replies awkwardly. The black kwami hovers concernedly over his charge, feeling helpless.

“ _She_ left _me!_ They glory—glorify her and I—I’m the _Guardian_ because she didn’t trust—because she… didn’t…”

Adrien stumbles against the low coffee table and falls to the wine-stained carpet below. His blurry vision can barely make out the words ’8-year anniversary’ and ‘remembrance’ on the cracked television. His mind brings up a clearer image of Ladybug’s smiling face than what the screen offered. He closes his eyes.

“I hate her. I hate her so much, Plagg,” he whispers with trembling lips, curling into a tight ball. He pretends he can’t feel the black kwami’s pitying gaze. He doesn’t need pity.

“Yeah kid. That’s okay. It’s okay.”

Adrien feels the little kwami slide out the drink from his hand before his vision goes black. He hears a few quiet clicks of a number being called before the rest of the world goes away too.

-x-

“Chat Noir.”

The voice came from behind. Female. It was caustic and imperious, with an undercurrent of grudging respect. Her footsteps were loud and sure, as demanding of attention at the top of the empty Notre Dame Cathedral as a stadium packed with reporters. The winds are harsh this high up, wafting the scent of a high-end perfume. Adrien knows who it is without looking.

“Queen Bee,” he acknowledges quietly, still staring out over the city. His green eyes were especially fixated on the Louvre. There was a rather large crowd out for the spring fashion week. He takes in the flashing lights before offering, “I would have thought you were down there for _Agreste_.” After all, it was public knowledge Queen Bee worked for the fashion brand. It was her involvement that the company had managed to avoid sharing the same fate as its founder.

 _‘They’ve sent her this time,’_ Chat muses.

“I knew you would be here tonight and it’s impossible to contact you, like a stray cat,” Queen Bee answers with a disapproving click of her tongue. “I’ll get straight to the point. We need a new Ladybug.”

The black-clad hero sighed. Recently, the other Miraculous wielders had approached him with the same message—relinquish the Ladybug Miraculous, pass it on to another who could replace their missing member. Rena Rouge, Carapace, Bunnix, Pegasus, Viperion, King Monkey, and Ryuko had all come forward. Queen Bee was the last.

“No, we do not. We’ve done just fine so far. Follow the others’ example and drop it, Bee,” he replies. He takes his eyes off the Louvre to shoot Queen Bee a warning look. There’s a cold danger in his gaze.

_‘Leave it alone, Chloe…’_

Queen Bee scoffs. “Don’t give me that, _Chat Noir._ I’m not like the rest of those ridiculous idiots who do whatever you tell them to,” she sneers, crossing her arms. “And fine? Tell that to Nadja Chamack and the rest of Paris! The hospitalizations from our last fight with Paonne has them dragging us through the _dirt_. It’s ridiculous that _I_ have to suffer like this when a Ladybug can just fix everything after with Miraculous Ladybug.”

But Chat Noir has gotten better at scenting lies. Her brow is furrowed ever so slightly, a light frown rests on her face, and her fingers on her elbows are just a bit too tense. She’s nervous, scared. Worried. Chloe’s image wasn’t the first thing on her mind. She’s hiding something.

“We do enough by defeating the sentimonsters. We don’t _need_ another Ladybug,” Chat responds tersely. His eyes are trained on the entrance of the building far away. It was nearing that time of the night again.

“You mean you don’t want another Ladybug to replace the old one.” Chat’s jaw tenses at that. “You’re being selfish. We all loved her too, you know. Ladybug was amazing, but there has to be another out there who can do the job.”

“My answer is no, and that’s final,” Chat bites back, irritated the longer this conversation lasted. He just wanted them all to leave it be. They were fine. No one needed to take up the mantle. No one could or should replace Ladybug. They were all being idiots. Everything was fine!

“You’re being ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous!” She throws her hands up in the air. “My reputation shouldn’t have to take this! Just give me the Miraculous and I’ll do it for you. I’ll find someone else who can do the job.”

“Oh, is that what this is about? Being Queen Bee not enough for you? I’m not giving you the Ladybug Miraculous, _Chloe_.”

“What?” she asks, stepping back. “No, don’t get me wrong, you mangy cat—"

“No, I see now. You’ve always wanted to be on top, and now that the people want another Ladybug, you have your chance.” He advances upon the striped heroine, uncaring of the menacing way his tail curls, of the cruel glint in his jade green eyes.

“No, it’s… it’s not like that!”

You keep trying to be someone you’re not. You take up their behavior, their looks, try to copy everything about them, but no one buys it and you’ll never be good enough.” And he grins cruelly, continuing, “You can’t be Ladybug, Chloe, just as much as you can’t be your mo—”

 _“Shut up, Adrien!”_ she shrieks, raising a hand.

_Slap!_

Chat Noir’s eyes are wide as he looks to the side. There is a red imprint of a hand on his cheek where Queen Bee had struck him, breathing hard. “This isn’t you. You’re… you’re just being ridiculous, Adrien,” Chloe Bourgeois mutters. “Staying up here, watching her from a distance. Refusing to let anyone do her duty when even she left us, including you. You need to let Marinette go. Not for Paris, but for yourself.”

_‘How did she… when did she get so perceptive? Marinette… I…’_

But it’s that time of the night again. He looks to the Louvre again and is rewarded with the sight of the quickly rising designer leaving the building, surrounded by adoring fans and coworkers. She’s smiling and laughing, and for a half second, he feels warm again.

He knows Chloe is right, but that doesn’t stop him from saying for the final time, “My answer is final.”

-x-

His lady had always loved to tease him. She ruffled his hair, poked his cheeks, flicked his forehead, and yanked his tail. Still, double entendre aside, Chat Noir had always had a soft spot for Ladybug ringing his bell. He had always considered the bell a symbol of his domesticity, like he was her kept housecat, like he belonged to her. It was a symbol that someone wanted him, that he wasn’t the savage, feral being that the powers of destruction alluded to him as. He had a feeling Ladybug knew that.

Paonne certainly did.

She picked up on the little nuances of Ladybug and Chat Noir’s relationship, and it showed in her sentimonsters. She was especially fond of throwing Ladybug clones at him, both to keep him off-kilter and as a taunt, because he would be subjected to seeing his beloved die before him over and over again. If anything else, there was no question that Paonne despised Ladybug with every inch of her being.

This was Sentimonster Ladybug #17. The source of its power was in the earrings, as always, but Paonne seemed to want to just torture him today and kill the sentimonster herself. Chat lets it come close. Paonne always liked it when he could see ‘Ladybug’s’ pain in its entirety.

Not-Ladybug grins at him and rings his bell with a single finger. Bluebell eyes met his, an undercurrent of flirtatiousness beneath raw longing. “Chat, I’ve missed you,” it breathes, not minding Chat’s stony, unresponsive expression.

_Ladybug, on the street with Viperion. Ladybug, relinquishing her Miraculous and status as Guardian without so much as a goodbye or apology. Ladybug, lying, lying, lying to him all the time, withholding secrets from him always because she thought he was weak, just someone to keep around until who she really wanted came around._

Not-Ladybug wraps her hand around his bell, using it to lower his face to hers. Her fingers play with his Miraculous, both players knowing that today would not be the day he lost it. No, today was for pain. It doesn’t get any further than that.

Paris watches with horror as Chat Noir suddenly lets out a feral snarl, rips off the hand still holding his bell, and tears the sentimonster limb from bloody limb. When he finally gets around to destroying the earrings and using Cataclysm on the amok, he and the ground are splattered a gory red that rivaled Ladybug’s iconic suit.

Paonne never sends another Ladybug sentimonster. When Chat Noir next transforms, there is no bell.

-x-

He tells himself he hates her for abandoning Paris, for leaving him to pick up the pieces. Deep down he knows it’s a lie. He hates that she left him.

He hates that he wasn’t enough.

-x-

“Adrien are you okay?” Plagg questions him nervously. The black kwami floats in front of him, clearly losing his mind at the fact that his human partner wasn’t.

In fact, Adrien’s face was completely blank. He was still staring at the broken window he and Ladybug—Marinette Dupain Cheng—had entered through. His partner had fled at the sight of him through the same point, leaving him dumbfounded.

Ladybug… was Marinette. Marinette was Ladybug. The fact was laughably easy to accept.

He couldn’t let any of this get back to her, not the murder, not her double identity. And, well, Chat Noir had always protected his lady. He knew what he had to do and had no second thoughts. With a resolute nod to Plagg, Adrien transformed into Chat Noir. He flexes his hand.

“Cataclysm,” he utters.

A black miasma emerges from his fingertips, the familiar thrum of Plagg’s power making the air vibrate with anticipation. Concentrating hard, he lays a palm flat on the wall of his father’s office. For a moment, nothing happens. Then, slowly, room disintegrates. The walls and floor turn into black dust. The furniture and paintings follow. Lastly, his father’s slowly-cooling corpse—along with evidence pointing to Marinette, Ladybug, his partner, his best friend, the love of his life--crumbles into nothing. She was safe. Adrien spares one last glance at the man who had loved, cared for, used and abused him, but he doesn’t feel anything. Not sorrow, not vindication, nothing.

He thinks he should. He knows he will, later.

He’s… not okay, no. Not now. But he knows he will be, once he regroups with Marinette and they talk over what happened and their options moving forward. She’d help him with his numbness, he’d help her with the guilt. They’d get the story straight, whether or not it was the truth. Adrien didn’t care if he had to lie to everyone, just so long as they were safe, and they were together.

Because that’s what Ladybug and Chat Noir _do_ , what they _are._

They were a team, and they would be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this at 1am in the morning and it's now 7am. It's pretty obvious where I got bored with writing and where I went o f f, haha. Will probably add more to this again, maybe to find a happy resolution... but probably to pile more angst and in more detail. Thanks for reading.


End file.
